


Tsuna Explains the Mafia in Under Thirty Minutes

by grainjew



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, POV Outsider, Things Get Explained To Hana, ehhh kinda it doesnt really count but like., fun fact!!! tsuna is terrified of bermuda and he somehow only just noticed, gokudera and yamamoto are in here too but for like a grand total of three lines so they dont count, this whole fic is really dumb and im very fond of it, tsuna has seen SO much weird shit in the past year or two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 19:03:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14983574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: (and, considering that it took long enough to just get past the whole thing where a cursed baby with a gun showed up in his living room, he really doesn't get very far)The day after Tsuna's final fight with Bermuda, Kyoko wants to know what all the bustle was about. Hana is invited along, because Kyoko thinks it's time to stop keeping secrets. Tsuna is really, really tired.“Um, cursed?” said Hana flatly. “I thought we were talking about the mafia, not” she waved an arm, “fairy tales or something.”“When you get shot in the head by a baby and don’t die you kind of stop questioning things,” said Sawada in perfect seriousness. “Don’t worry, you get used to it.”





	Tsuna Explains the Mafia in Under Thirty Minutes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kuzujuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuzujuk/gifts).



“So, Tsuna-kun,” said Kyoko one morning before classes started, stopping Sawada as he walked to his spot with a _look_ , “all that stuff that was going down is over now, right?”

Hana watched, fascinated, as Sawada’s eyes went wide in three different types of panic. He collected himself, minutely, and gently pushed his guard dogs towards their spots when it looked like they were about to say something. Somewhat surprisingly, they went without complaint.

“Yeah, pretty much,” said Sawada, sounding tired. “Your charm was super helpful as always, Kyoko-chan. Thank you!”

“Tsuna-kun,” said Kyoko, voice much more serious than Hana usually heard it, “now that it’s over, you can tell me what was really going on, right?”

And now Hana was _really_ paying attention.

“Um,” said Sawada, very articulately.

The thing was, Hana was not an idiot, or unobservant, and at some point after they became friends in primary school and before Kyoko was appointed class idol in their first year of middle school Hana had decided that it was her job to keep an eye on her best friend and defend her from any boys who would dare get their cooties on her. She had since outgrown the cooties but not the watchful protectiveness, especially now that she had a much _better_ reason to defend Kyoko from boys, and Sawada Tsunayoshi kept messing with her hard-earned trouble-sensing instincts.

It was obvious that there was _something_ going on with Sawada and the people who followed him around, even if most of the student body was too unobservant to notice it. It was equally obvious, at least to Hana, that Kyoko was somehow involved in whatever it was. And Hana needed to know these kinds of things. It bothered her not to, and okay _maybe_ she was a little bit jealous and sad that Kyoko didn’t trust her with whatever this all was. Maybe.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Kyoko, with finality. Then she added, when Sawada didn’t answer, “I know just enough for it to be dangerous to me, and if you don’t tell me I’ll just go ask someone else. Like maybe one of the people I saw at that meeting you called.”

“You were there?” asked Sawada, faintly. Hana realized that she wasn’t sure she had ever seen him not in a state of panic.

“Not very long, just long enough to deliver the charms to Bianchi and see you interacting civilly with _Byakuran_ ,” said Kyoko, and even Hana’s eyes widened a little at the venom in her voice when she said the last name.

Sawada sighed, and somehow managed to look even more tired than before. “...lunch. I’ll tell you then. I promise.”

“Thank you,” said Kyoko, and it sounded like she really meant it. And then: “I’m bringing Hana too.”

Sawada looked at Kyoko levelly, tiredly, and then brought his gaze over to Hana. “You trust her,” he said, in a way that definitely wasn’t a question. “And she was listening in.”

Hana winced. She hadn’t expected him to notice.

“I trust her,” said Kyoko. “And since she’s my friend she’s involved by proxy.”

“...True,” said Sawada. And then he looked at the clock and his eyes widened in panic again. “See you then!” he eeped, as he skittered to his seat like a panicked mouse, all that unexpected composure gone in an instant.

 

Lunch came, after some interminable lessons where Hana did her best to concentrate on the content and not the fact that she might finally get some answers soon, and the classroom ignited into noise as everyone made a rush for the door. Sawada walked up to Kyoko and Hana as the class emptied, his guard dogs a bit behind him like twin shadows. Very loud and argumentative and possibly explosive twin shadows.

“So,” said Kyoko.

Sawada twitched, like somehow he hadn’t been expecting her to speak. He pulled up a chair in front of Kyoko’s desk and just about fell into it. “Gokudera-kun, Yamamoto-kun, can you please make sure nobody comes in? I need to tell Kyoko-chan about,” he waved a hand, “uh, all the Rainbow stuff.” _Rainbows_?

“Of course, Tenth!” proclaimed Gokudera, and Hana wondered not for the first time what exactly Sawada was the Tenth _of_. “Nobody will disturb you as long as I’m alive and can fight!”

He grabbed Yamamoto’s arm with a “hurry up, Baseball Idiot, you’re disgracing the Tenth” and Yamamoto looked over his shoulder with an amused grin as he let himself be dragged off to stand guard outside the door, probably.

“Please don’t hurt anyone!” Sawada shouted after them, somewhere between panicked and full of regret as his voice went up a full octave.

“Well, we definitely have the room to ourselves now.” Kyoko sounded amused, so Hana looked around. The room had, in fact, been abandoned except for them. “So. Explain.” Kyoko paused. “Actually you might want to tell Hana some background, first, _before_ we get to why you were standing at the front of a meeting of terrifying people in Nana-san’s kitchen.”

“Ri- _i_ ght,” said Tsuna, drawing out the word nervously. “Uh. How do I. Well okay so it all started when a baby with a yellow pacifier and a gun came into my house and said he was going to be my tutor, because I was apparently the tenth-generation heir of Vongola.”

“Which is a very powerful mafia family, by the way,” said Kyoko, helpfully.

Helpfully? Not helpfully. “What.” Hana pitched her voice to perfect sarcastic flatness. And then she skipped past all the stuff about babies and guns to something she could actually process. “So Sawada is the heir to a criminal empire?” On an objective level, that made pretty much no sense.

Sawada squirmed. “‘s not like I _wanted_ it,” he muttered. “I’m still not becoming a mafia boss, no matter what everyone says. I’m _not_.”

“He is,” confirmed Kyoko. “Supposed to be the tenth Vongola boss, that is. I’ve heard enough people call him Vongola Decimo to know that. Plus you’ve heard how Gokudera-kun runs around calling him Tenth.” Oh. Well, yes, that would explain that. “But Hana, even though he’s associated with criminals, he’s a good person who protects his friends, okay? That’s the most important part, Hana. Before you glare him to death for being a criminal you have to know that he saved my life, okay?”

Hana didn’t really feel like she’d even had time to process this whole thing enough yet to do any glaring, but Kyoko was looking at her all beseeching so she said, “Okay, Kyoko, I understand.” The _mafia_ , what even. “...I’ll withhold judgement until I hear the whole story.”

“Thanks, Hana,” said Kyoko.

“Yeah, thank you,” said Sawada, still squirming a little.

“So, you’re a mafia boss apparently,” said Hana, compartmentalizing. “Continue.”

“I’m not!” protested Sawada, but continued anyways. “That baby, my home tutor, his name is Reborn. The reason he’s a baby, even though he’s also the World’s Greatest Hitman and a home tutor, is because he is— was a member of the Arcobaleno.”

“The Arcobaleno?” asked Hana, at the same time that Kyoko leaned forward and said, “ _Was_?”

“Was,” confirmed Sawada, practically glowing all of a sudden. Where did that soft smile come from? “That’s what we were fighting for, ultimately.”

“I thought the Arcobaleno were just what people called the seven strongest babies?” Kyoko sounded as confused as Hana felt, although apparently for a different reason. _Seven strongest babies?_ What kind of person even _decides_ that?

“That’s what I thought, too. But it turns out they all used to be adults and got cursed into being babies when they were turned into the next generation of Arcobaleno to protect their portion of the Trinisette.”

“Um, cursed?” said Hana flatly. “I thought we were talking about the mafia, not” she waved an arm, “fairy tales or something.”

“When you get shot in the head by a baby and don’t die you kind of stop questioning things,” said Sawada in perfect seriousness. “Don’t worry, you get used to it.”

“You do,” said Kyoko, in amusement. “This makes a lot more sense than Reborn just being a really precocious baby, actually.”

“Okay. The mafia. Cursed infants.” Hana took a deep breath. “What’s that Trinisette thing you mentioned?”

Sawada lifted a hand and indicated the really ostentatious double ring he wore there. “This is one part of it, the Vongola sky ring. It’s three sets of seven objects, two sets of rings, well kinda, and then the Arcobaleno pacifiers. I won’t go into all the history of it but basically its existence keeps the balance of the world and makes sure we don’t all die. The Arcobaleno were always picked from the seven strongest of their generation to protect the pacifiers.”

“...why _pacifiers_ , though?” Of all the forms for an ancient artifact of power to take… Hana wasn’t quite sure why she wasn’t questioning the ancient artifact of power bit more closely. Probably she had already heard her quota of unbelievable things. That was terrifying, she prided herself on her skepticism.

Sawada tilted his head at her, curiously. “You know, I didn’t actually ask Kawahira about that one. Maybe I should have.”

“Kawahira?” Kyoko leaned forward. “Oh! That guy who helped us in the future! You met him again?”

“Yeah, him,” said Sawada, wearily. “Turns out he’s the person behind the Arcobaleno curse. He seems to have relatively good intentions but everyone kind of hates him. Especially the Arcobaleno, because he tricked them into being cursed.”

“But he _helped_ us,” said Kyoko.

“Helped us fix the balance of the Trinisette, that’s all,” corrected Sawada. “That’s all he seems to care about.”

“Oh.”

Hana was definitely going to question Kyoko later about that _us_ she was using. Okay, yeah, dammit, she was definitely jealous. Ugh. She _hated_ being jealous.

“Anyways, long story short Kyoko-chan, Kawahira contacted Reborn and the other Arcobaleno and told them that he would take off the curse from one of them if their team won in the Representative Battles of the Rainbow, where basically each Arcobaleno was supposed to pick a team and we’d all fight in a series of battle royales. So that’s why all those people like Byakuran and Xanxus are in Namimori, they were on teams.”

“You were fighting,” said Kyoko flatly.

“Yeah,” said Sawada. “As Reborn’s representatives. Don’t worry though, your brother got knocked out of it really fast! By Hibari-san, who was Fon’s representative. Big Brother was stuck healing everyone for the rest of the battles.”

Kyoko let out a small relieved sigh at the news, although if Hana were to have an opinion about this Ryohei shouldn’t have been fighting in the first place. He _knew_ how much it worried his sister.

“...so, who won?” asked Kyoko after a moment. “You said Reborn _was_ an Arcobaleno?”

“Nobody,” said Sawada. “Everybody? It got kinda complicated. See— uh, how much do you know about the Vindice, again?”

“That’s the, uh, mafia police, right?” Kyoko scrunched her face.

“Um,” said Hana, “the mafia have _police_?”

Sawada snorted softly. “I know, right? I don’t think Bermuda really gave them much of a choice though, when he decided he was going to be the arbiter of mafia law. He’s, um, a bit terrifying. A lot terrifying.” Sawada’s eyes widened, and he froze. “ _Heck_ , what was I _thinking_?”

“Tsuna-kun?” questioned Kyoko after a moment, when Sawada just sat there unmoving.

He jolted. “Sorry!” He waved a hand in a way that looked like it was trying to be dismissive but just succeeded in being panicked. “I just realized for real how much I almost died yesterday! Um! Anyways!”

“Tsuna-kun, are you alright?” Kyoko looked concerned, and Hana really couldn’t blame her. Sawada seemed half a step away from a full-blown panic attack, instead of his usual full step.

“Just fine!” he lied obviously, and then plunged on before Kyoko could protest more. Rude of him. “So Bermuda, the leader of the Vindice, he’s a baby like Reborn and the others it turns out, except he’s a _former_ Arcobaleno who stayed alive after the curse got taken off entirely because of how much he hated Kawahira. So he stole Skull’s place — he was being represented by Enma and the rest of the Shimon people and that’s why Enma was in the hospital, he got beat up by the Vindice — and he joined the Representative Battles to win and then get a chance to kill Kawahira.”

“But… Wouldn’t the curse getting taken off have made him, uh, become not a baby?” asked Hana, because dammit if she had to hear about magic mafia babies at least there better be some kind of _internal_ logic for her to follow.

Sawada bit his lip, considering. “Uh, I think maybe since he was still running Flame through his pacifier, even if it was the Flame of Night instead of whatever his original Flame was, it probably kept him from getting older, cause now that the curse is broken on the others they’re supposed to grow up properly, except for Lal-san who’s her old age again.”

“I understood exactly none of that,” said Hana dryly, “but okay, go on.” _As long as there’s_ some _sort of logic involved_.

“You mean, the curse is broken on _all_ the Arcobaleno?” cut in Kyoko. “How’d that happen?”

Sawada grinned that light, relieved grin again again like the sky had cleared, and said, “Yeah!” He nudged some hair out of his eyes. “And uh, I was getting there. Sort of. Uh. Turns out that the goal of the Representative Battles wasn’t to pick a winner to take the curse off, but instead Kawahira uses them to transfer the curse onto the winning team, which would be the next generation of Arcobaleno.”

“You didn’t…” Kyoko’s face was serious, and worried.

“Bermuda was gonna sacrifice himself, the Vindice, and the Arcobaleno to kill Kawahira and stop the cycle. And even if Bermuda didn’t win and kill Kawahira, Reborn and the others would have still died when the curse was transferred. And I really, really, really didn’t want Reborn to die.” He looked down, remembering something, and his voice turned soft and somber. “He’s a horrible demon baby, but he doesn’t deserve to think he’s gonna die a bad death. How dare he think that!”

Kyoko put a hand on his shoulder, and Sawada took a deep breath.

“So I had an idea about how to maybe have the Arcobaleno survive, and I went to talk to Talbot — he’s really old and knows lots of things — about it, and the thing was. The only way for it to even maybe work was if Bermuda didn’t win. And that’s why I called that meeting and made an alliance with all those people who’d tried to kill me, because I could trust them from that, and they wanted the other Arcobaleno to not die, also.”

“Uh, Sawada,” interrupted Hana, “how does that make _any_ sense at all?”

“How does what make any sense?” he asked, so genuinely confused that Hana wasn't sure if he was faking it.

“How does them trying to kill you make you trust them! That makes no sense!”

“Oh,” said Sawada, like he hadn't even thought about that. “Well I fought them, so I got a sense of them. And besides, Xanxus may hate my guts, but he's got too much pride in Vongola to actually act on it when there's an external enemy. Mukuro _says_ he hates my guts but I don't think he actually does anymore for some reason? We got that whole misunderstanding sorted out with the Shimon, so me and Enma are friends again. And Byakuran took a bullet for me the other day, plus he says he wants to protect Yuni’s heart this time. So. We could trust them.” Sawada nodded once, to emphasize his point.

“ _Byakuran_ did?”

Sawada looked levelly at Kyoko. “Yeah, he did. I wouldn't trust him if I didn't know he was on our side, Kyoko-chan. But he seems to really regret everything that happened in the future, or at least not want to do it again, and be friends this time. We fought together, and he took one of Colonello's bullets to keep me safe. So I think, I think it's fine. I think it's okay.”

“If you think so, Tsuna-kun,” said Kyoko, staring back at him just as levelly. “I'm still going to punch him if I ever see him, though.”

“Me too,” muttered Hana, protective friend instincts bristling as she tried not to imagine what this Byakuran had done to Kyoko.

“Yeah, okay,” said Sawada, sighing in relief. “Xanxus tries to shoot me every time he sees me, sometimes it's just like that I guess.”

“I don’t actually think it’s supposed to be ‘just like that,’” noted Kyoko, giggling softly. “But I guess if you don’t have any problems with him shooting you…”

“Kyoko-chan, I have _so_ many problems with being shot at.” Sawada looked abruptly tired again. “I kind of got used to it though, which is _terrible_.”

“So!” said Kyoko. She clapped her hands together. “What happened after the meeting?”

“Um, well, we ended up fighting the Vindice the next day,” answered Sawada, glancing around like he didn’t want to look at Hana or Kyoko. “I ended up fighting Bermuda, cause everyone else got knocked out by him or Jaeger, his second-in-command. I, well,” he looked down, emotions crossing his face too fast to read, “I beat him, I guess. And then afterwards we sorted things out with Kawahira and Talbot and got the curse off the Arcobaleno, and everyone went to the hospital or home. And then I came to school today. And that’s everything, I think.”

Hana blinked, taking in the information. “Okay,” she said. And then she gestured at him, in all his cringing scrawniness and said, “ _you_ fought that Bermuda guy you’re so afraid of? _Alone_?” She had been suspending her disbelief up till now, but, he _was_ No-Good Tsuna for a reason, even if he was also a mafia boss apparently and friends with ridiculously dangerous people who tried to kill him all the time.

“Hana!” snapped Kyoko. “Don’t talk to Tsuna-kun like that, he is a much better and stronger person than anyone thinks! You’ve never seen him…”

“I did,” said Sawada to Hana as Kyoko trailed off, his voice emotionless except for tiredness. And then he added, “Thank you, Kyoko-chan.”

“Tsuna-kun…” whispered Kyoko. “So that’s why you needed the charm so soon.” She leaned over without warning and grabbed Sawada in an awkward cross-desk hug. “I’m glad you’re alright, Tsuna-kun.” Sawada’s face _immediately_ went bright red. “Tell me next time, though,” she scolded as she pulled back. “What’s the point of having friends if we can’t help out with things like that, honestly?”

“...Well, maybe—” started Sawada.

But he was interrupted by raised voices outside the door, and then two thumps, and the feared prefect of Nami Middle stepped, expressionless, into the classroom.

Hana felt herself pale, and saw Kyoko and Sawada’s eyes widen.

“Hibari-san!” yelped Sawada. “I thought you were in the hospital!”

“I got bored. Those herbivores don’t put up a decent fight, anyways.”

“ _Hibari-san_!” Sawada sounded scandalized.

Hibari tilted his head at Sawada, the bird on his shoulder imitating him perfectly. “I heard you bit that herbivore to death properly, small animal.”

“Uh. Uh! Well he’s not _dead_ , so technically not really, but!” answered Sawada, flustered. He ducked his head. “...thanks, Hibari-san.”

“Hn,” said Hibari, looking away. “Well, if you can match him, then you can match me.” His tonfa appeared out of either his sleeves or thin air and his expression turned predatory. “I’ll bite you to death.”

“Aa! Hibari-san, no!” shrieked Sawada, scrambling backwards and knocking over two desks and five chairs. Hana tugged Kyoko to the far corner of the room and took cover behind the teacher’s desk. “We’ll trash the classroom!”

“If you hurt Nami Middle, I will bite you to death.”

“I _know_ , Hibari-san!” Sawada looked halfway between wanting to curl up in a ball and pull his hair out. Reluctantly, Hana was impressed. It was one thing to hear about Sawada being the heir to a criminal empire and matching with some horrifying mafia police chief. It was another thing entirely to see Hibari seeking him out for a spar. And it was yet another thing to see the usual terrified reaction to Hibari mixed in with something that just sounded like exasperation. “Hibari-san, I can’t fight you here without hurting the classroom!”

“So you will fight me, then.”

“That’s not what I said!”

The bell rang to signal the end of lunch, and Hana realized belatedly that none of them had eaten.

“Hn,” said Hibari. “We will spar after classes, small animal. Prepare to be bitten to death.”

Then he turned on his heel and stalked out, ignoring Sawada’s shrill “C-can we not do that, actually!” as he passed through the door.

“Small animal?” wondered Hana. “That’s new.”

She didn’t get an answer, though, because Sawada and Yamamoto were too busy reassuring Gokudera, who was inconsolably apologizing for letting Hibari inside, and then they were all overwhelmed by the reluctant rush of students coming back from lunch. Hana supposed she could let it pass, for once. She had gotten perhaps a few too many answers for comfort today already.

**Author's Note:**

> yall i love reveal fic so much. i love reactions
> 
> i also love tsuna and kyoko's beautiful friendship!
> 
>  
> 
> hmu on tumblr or twitter @grainjew !!!! i like making friends and also talking about my fic, and also my flames meta ~


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